Big Idea:
students work with partners to find the unit rates and use them to solve ratio word problems

Students enter silently according to the Daily Entrance Routine. “Do Now” assignments include problems requiring rational number operations. Students are to enter their answers into clickers with achievements and paycheck points awarded to those who finish on time.

Reviewing the work for these problems is key. Students must be practicing a neat way to show calculations and work for rational number operations. A great way to foster neat work is through neatness competitions. I select the top 5 neatest work shown on students’ papers and display it on the board for teachers to vote on, without knowing the students’ names. The winner earns a free lunch on me with a friend.

Resources

In the first ten minutes of this section I will model three different strategies for solving ratio problems on this sheet and ask students to take notes. Questions are to be asked at the end of each example. For the first example I use equivalent ratios to reduce and identify the unit rate, for the second example I use a ratio table to arrive at the value of the whole wall, and for example #3, I use proportions to find the number of teaspoons.

For each example it is important to calculate the unit rate and discuss its important and helpfulness in calculating the answers to the questions.

#1

#2

#3

In the next 10 minutes, students work for with partners to complete the next three examples included in the classwork. As students complete each problem I ask different groups to go up to the board to display their work.

When we review the answers in this section I use the opportunity to get kids talking about math and describing the reasoning behind their solutions. This is also a good time to encourage the use of vocabulary words: ratio, rate, equivalent, in proportion, proportionate, etc.

In the last ten minutes of this section students will work independently to solve 2 additional problems along with an exit ticket.

There is a large cushion of time in this section because I want to feel free to allow the time for students to communicate about math and to get most to talk about the solutions for today’s problems.

Resources

Students will use the remaining time to complete the independent practice problems and exit ticket at the end of class and turn them in for me to check. I will be using this data to determine if I need to reteach or remediate any skills with targeted groups of students.